Playacting happiness: tragicomedy in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford Item Type Thesis Authors Udden, Meryem A. Download date 01/10/2021 08:14:04 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/11122/11295 PLAYACTING HAPPINESS: TRAGICOMEDY IN JANE AUSTEN'S MANSFIELD PARK AND ELIZABETH GASKELL'S CRANFORD By Meryem A. Udden, B.A. A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English University of Alaska Fairbanks May 2020 APPROVED: Rich Carr, Committee Chair Eric Heyne, Committee Member Terence Reilly, Committee Member Rich Carr, Department Chair Department of English Todd Sherman, Dean College of Liberal Arts Michael Castellini, Dean of the Graduate School Abstract This thesis examines tragicomedy in two 19th Century British novels, Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford. Both narratives have perceived happy endings; however, tragedy lies underneath the surface. With Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream as a starting point, playacting becomes the vehicle through which tragedy can be discovered by the reader. Throughout, I find examples in which playacting begins as a comedic act, but acquires tragic potential when parents enter the scene. Here, I define tragedy not as a dramatic experience, but rather seemingly small injustices that, over time, cause more harm than good. In Mansfield Park, the tragedy is parental neglect and control. In Cranford, the tragedy is parental abuse. For both narratives, characters are unable to experience life fully, and past parental injuries cannot be redeemed. While all the children in the narratives experience some form of parental neglect, the marginalized children are harmed more than the others. In addition, I find that lifelong loneliness is a common theme in both narratives, showing that tragedy can lead to grief experienced in isolation. iii iv Table of Contents Page Title Page ........................................................................................................................................ i Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ v Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 ......................................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 2 ....................................................................................................................................... 35 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 55 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 59 v Introduction In Fall 2016 I completed a 19th Century British Literature course on “The Greatest Storytellers.” In the course I kept returning to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford. As I reread and examined the texts, I started to notice how the novels juxtaposed tragic and comedic elements. For the final research paper, I examined tragicomedy in the two texts in light of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. My thesis is an expansion of that research paper. I chose to expand on these two texts because the stories appear ordinary and humorous at first, yet hidden tragedies lie underneath the surface. Austen and Gaskell's texts have several similarities to A Midsummer Night's Dream. All three texts are considered “comedies” in the Greek sense; they incorporate humor, ordinary people with weaknesses, and a happy ending. Most important for my purpose, all three texts include playacting, which in turn allows or provides a vehicle for tragedy to enter the comedic world. For Midsummer, the performance after a wedding reflects the tragedy of forbidden love. For Austen and Gaskell's texts, playacting is a form of child rebellion, provoking parental neglect, control, or abuse. Parental control is prevalent throughout Austen's Mansfield Park. The text illuminates this parental “colonialism” through the coming-of-age story of Fanny Price. At a young age, Fanny is taken from her home in Portsmouth to live with her relatives at Mansfield Park. The narrative is an inverted bildungsroman, as Fanny's maturity and education are enforced by her guardian uncle, aunts, and cousins, the Bertrams and Mrs. Norris. Rather than a story of discovery and growth, the story highlights the ill-treatment of a vulnerable adolescent. Fanny does not experience transformation; rather her situation only changes for the better through a fortunate circumstance. While Fanny's marriage to her cousin Edmund Bertram should be a favorable ending, her marriage solidifies the Bertram family's ownership of her. 1 In contrast, Cranford focuses on a community of women in the fictional town, Cranford. Mary Smith, the narrator and cultural anthropologist of the town, documents the town's events, people, and society. Whether unmarried or widowed, the Cranford women elevate the insignificant to importance; domestic and trivial everyday activities set the scene and seemingly commonplace characters take center stage. Miss Matty, the town's central figure, is highly regarded in the community. An ordinary matron, Miss Matty has no notable accomplishments, but her steadfast character makes her a cornerstone in the community. What sets this town apart from others is the fact that women run the town, not men. In fact, men are not welcome in the Cranford community. The town, however, makes one exception, when Miss Matty's estranged brother, Peter Jenkyns, returns to Cranford. Peter was driven out of Cranford in his youth. Decades later, Mary contacts Peter during Miss Matty's hour of need. Peter's return to Cranford and his reunion with his sister, Miss Matty, concludes the novel. At first or even second glance, Mansfield Park and Cranford do not appear tragic. Both texts were written by women writers and have women protagonists. In the context of 19th Century British (and American) literature, novels with women protagonists generally resolve with the major women characters united in matrimony with the “right” or “perfect” partner. Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813), Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847), Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (1847), Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (1854), and Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868)1, are examples of 19th Century novels by women writers that resolve in the marriages of the women characters. An exception from this list is George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (1860). Eliot's The Mill on 1 Alcott's Little Women has one exception, Beth, who does pass away in the novel, placing marriage and death in proximity with one another. 2 the Floss is tragic in the Greek sense, for despite everything, Maggie's deepest love remains for her brother, leading to her death. Like Sophocles' Antigone, Maggie sacrifices her life for her brother. Mansfield Park and Cranford do not fit into either of these molds easily. The two novels do not align with Greek tragedy like The Mill on the Floss, but they also certainly do not end in happy marriages. Rather, the two texts resolve with the women characters either single, divorced, widowed, or in an incestuous marriage. In essence, Mansfield Park and Cranford create a new way of viewing tragicomedy outside of the traditional plot in which marriage or death defines how a text is categorized. When thinking about the concepts of tragedy and comedy, Shakespeare's plays come to mind. Shakespeare's plays lay a foundation for how we think about tragedy and comedy in British literature. For instance, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, and Much Ado About Nothing are examples of comedy. All three plays take the audience through events in which something is at stake, but the ending is one of marriage or reunion. In all three plays, the “right” couples are, or are soon to be, united in marriage. Twelfth Night also concludes with a sibling reunion. In contrast, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello, are examples of tragedy. In these three plays, the tragedy results in the downfall of the protagonist, usually through an error in judgement. Hamlet's revenge, Macbeth's ambition, and Othello's jealousy - all result in multiple deaths including that of the protagonist. Shakespeare's plays show that a comedy ends in marriage or reunion for the principle players, while a tragedy ends in death. The two novels I am working with would generally be considered comic. Like Shakespeare's comedies, Mansfield Park and Cranford end with all problems apparently solved, and a marriage or reunion takes place. Mansfield Park ends with the right people getting married, Fanny and Edmund. Fanny is the protagonist and Edmund is the son who has gone down the 3 “right” path. The characters with problematic natures, Henry and Mary Crawford, also get the ending they deserve according to comedy, in the sense that they are left unhappy and unmarried at the novel's conclusion. While there are no marriages in Cranford, the novel does end with a reunion between Miss Matty and her brother, Peter. The return of Peter